Alfabet Enterprise Architecture Management Reviews

I work for a systems integrator and we are end users. Organizations using this product are enterprise-size, our largest customer has 30,000 users. One customer had use cases built on sourcing raw materials, moving them into pre-manufacturing, and then manufacturing. There was the manufacturing arm, the distribution arm and we then implemented detailed supply chains.

Alfabet forces you to be strict and controlled with the taxonomy so it's the taxonomy support across all phases that is the most advantageous feature.

The ability for Alfabet to acknowledge use cases that are specifically business-based and not technology-based and better integrate those process designs across the spectrum could be improved. The product is not great at implementing security frameworks across an end-to-end supply chain. In addition, raw business processing is not as modern as it could be. Use of the cloud is not leveraged to the maximum extent.

There can be some issues when performing maintenance or updates. We had to be careful with interface upgrades to core data to make sure the business process was operating effectively. 

I"ve been using this solution for close to 15 years. 

The solution is stable but operationally it's not that conducive to overall ops. It's as good as most, but it could be improved.

The solution is scalable although there are other packages out there that are easier to scale. That's because some of the modules are interfacing with microservices and the scalability can come to loggerheads with utilizing scale in other aspects of the cloud.

There's always a learning curve while the support teams learn what we have in place but we found the support generally delivered more than we had expected. Being an enterprise client, it meant that once we raised an issue, we did get attention. And the account services worked really well with us. 

Positive

I've previously used Linux and Kaspersky. I've been in the business for over 30 years so I've used lots of tools. Our client was already using Alfabet and didn't have plans to change. 

The solution is easy to install. Deployment time depends on the size of the organization but in our case it was four to six weeks for each individual business area and we used engineers and solution architects for the deployment. There's now also a maintenance schedule and process in place which required some extra effort. It required being very careful on the upgrade of the interface to the core data and making sure the business process was operating effectively. Maintenance is not a full-time role and it's handled as part of the ongoing business. 

The return on investment is higher than the financial cost of the package. The business is able to see the impact of their decisions from end to end and make more informed decisions and that was their goal. 

The Alfabet environment can likely cost you more than you'd want so you need to tune that although the suite doesn't include tools that do that effectively. 

Alfabet is not just a technology tool, it's also a business tool. And if a decision's made without the business involved, then Alfabet will not be in a position to deliver anything more than support for enterprise architect drawings and solutions drawings. It has to be the business. If you do that, it works well. If you don't and I've had the experience where they haven't evolved a business, then it just becomes a tech tool that the business doesn't care about. 

The stigma of having an environment that was so delayed in the maintenance caused lots of finger-pointing within the organization of who was right and who was wrong. It took a considerable period of time to move people past that point to actually look at it as a business tool supported by the technology team. 

I rate the solution seven out of 10.

The primary use of the solution was to commit different applications and to commit the technology being used by those.

The most valuable features are the completeness, and the repos included on the platform. 

The solution offers very good management.

The user experience, the layout and the different technologies behind the presentations are a bit old. These need to be updated. They should focus on web development. It's simply not supporting the current user experience guidelines.

The solution was quite expensive.

The modeling features on the solution need improvement. Alfabet is really good at management, but not that good in modeling. Some other products, like Sparx, can do both. The solution should strive to be good at both as well.

The solution is very stable.

Within the cloud environment, the solution is quite scalable.

We had a custom made internal solution before switching to Alfabet.

The initial setup was straightforward. It takes two to three days to set up the environment. One person was able to handle the implementation.

We had assistance with the implementation.

We evaluated iServer, and MEGA among others, but the main issue was the pricing of such technology. It is quite a large investment.

We only used the solution for a few months because it was only a proof of concept and since it was really expensive, we decided to choose another solution. We tested the solution for three months. Our organization used the private cloud deployment model from the software agent.

In terms of advice, I would say, that, as for any other product like this, to start slow. You should start with a small data model, and focus on improving it step by step.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. If it weren't for the pricing, I would probably rate it higher.

We use this solution for enterprise architecture in an on-premises deployment.

The most valuable features of this solution are its customizability, and flexibility in the configuration.

IT governance in this solution needs improvement. We would like to see the visualization of assets, as well as artificial intelligence techniques to assist us in making our decisions. 

This is a stable solution.

This solution is scalable, and we plan to increase its usage.

I have contacted technical support and they are excellent.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward. Our deployment took between two and four months. The number of staff required for deployment and maintenance depends on the size of the environment and the security policy that they use. For us, it is between three and five people.

We used an integrator to assist us with deployment.

We evaluated at least one other option before choosing this solution. 

My advice for anybody researching this solution is the training and knowledge transfer is very important because there are fewer people that really know about Alfabet. 

For us, adopting this solution was the right decision. We know a lot more about our assets and what we need to optimize and reuse from our collection of IT assets.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.